Jeudredi Roundup 6/1/23
Twenty-three is the place to be
Reading list
Phone propped up next to a slice of galette des rois.
The Fall of the Creative Class. A New York Times feature on the decline of central San Francisco is worth reading for itself, but also made me think about the many British cities that have spent years trying to attract the creative class. Brighton sometimes talked itself up to foreign visitors as “Britain’s San Francisco”, and while the new style of working from home might be a net positive for Brighton businesses (if well-paid London commuters stay home more), I can also see the risk that the city’s buzz fades further as affordability of housing and general life decreases.
A stats dive on the generational divide in British political attitudes, by Ben Ansell over at Political Calculus, shows that Brits generally don’t divide on government action, but on, for want of a better word, culture issues. Ben brings out divides on housing (everyone wants more, but not near them) and on the “British dream” (old people think they lived it, young people think it doesn’t exist). What should politicians today do? Fund better public services, reduce the cost of housing, and find new ways to give people the sense that they control their lives.
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Has Xi Jinping lost? A long interview with Anne Stevenson-Yang in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (in English) makes the case that the Covid policy reversal is a sign of an internal party revolt against Xi. He is still in office but, channelling Norman Lamont, is he in power?
Radio-Télévision Brussels
📺 Marshall McLuhan being very relevant to today talking about violence as a quest for identity - a bit like the 100-year-old prediction of climate change that went viral this week, listen to the audio of this old TV interview and it could be a podcast.
🎧 I had not realised how politically influential astrology is in India, until I listened to an episode of Cultures Monde from last week. [🇫🇷]
📺 The FIFA corruption scandal is old news, but the documentary series about it on Netflix was gripping, and I ended up finishing the last episode at 1am. Admittedly, football and politics are in my interest zone, but there were good interviews (including Blatter in self-justification mode), and lots of archive footage.
Vijfhoek
La Monnaie / De Munt has put many of this season’s operas and concerts online and streaming for free. Personal recommendations: the season opening concert and “On Purge Bébé!”
Hundred Euro Aubergines are going to be the only offer from the Brussels restaurant scene if the government doesn’t step up its support on energy prices, say horeca people speaking to Politico. Particularly disappointing given how horrible aubergines are.
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